


Rearrange the World [With Clear Eyes]

by onefootonego (startingXI)



Series: Glitter in the Dark [1]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Gen, TW: Blood, tw: techincally suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-16 16:36:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10575243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/startingXI/pseuds/onefootonego
Summary: all you can do is nod, because without maggie you’re pulling back into the gravity and the darkness of your current situation. where it’s alex in surgery and it’s alex who you failed,and it’s alex,alex,alex.[or: maggie sawyer learns a truth about kara danvers]





	

**Author's Note:**

> it is worth noting this story is high in angst. it’s an attempt to delve deeper into who kara is as a character, and do what the show does not - recognize her pain and her grief and her trauma. so that in mind, please read with caution.

you remember, with great, pained clarity, 

the moment everything changed. 

_"supergirl we need you over here. there's too many. we can't take them."_

your hands are shaking, bleeding, you let the soft skin of your fingertips shred against the fragmented concrete. 

_"we're in the northwest corner, third floor. six incoming, supergirl, we're out of ammo."_

you scream, because it is all you can do. your powers are gone, blown out by the force of your own anger. you have nothing left but alex's dried blood on your hands and your own blood, your own pain. the physical sensation you are so abjectly unfamiliar with is at the present, a relief. it is a tether to the physical world because without it,

you would be lost.

lost to the memory of your own failure. 

_"danvers down, i repeat danvers is down."_

you fall to your knees. feel the concrete floor bruise in a way you grasp at, rocking forward, putting more of your weight onto the suddenly fragile joints. happily, you would shatter them if not for the prospect of explaining your inability to walk to anyone at all. your hands you can blame on the concrete, your knees, 

less so.

tears are falling somehow still, you're not entirely sure how - even hours later - you still have enough water in you to produce them. they blur your vision. which, by now, 

is focused on the red smears that are your hands. fragile and broken and all encompassingly painful, pressing them into the floor to stand leaves bloody handprints on the floor and a small eternity of agony rippling through your body. 

you flex and curl them into firsts just to start the agony anew. 

"little danvers," comes from a voice by the wall and you startle.

you startle because how long has maggie sawyer been standing there? 

her hands are low, by her sides, fingers spread and the way she looks at you, the way she walks towards you - it's like she's approaching a wild animal. 

you notice there's no gun at her hip. 

no badge either. 

she looks pale and ragged, with red rimmed eyes and a tremor in her arms that you only see the closer she gets. 

"kara." she says softly, softly "can i look at your hands?" 

you step back, pulling away from her. you can't. you don't deserve such softness. alex is in a world of pain because of you, 

"kara," maggie says, and you catch her eyes as she surveys the blood on the pockmarked concrete, on the floor "don't keep punishing yourself." 

"why not?" you ask, voice unfamiliar to your ears "why shouldn't i?" 

"because alex wouldn't want you to." 

"if i had done my job alex could tell me that herself. instead she's -" you pause, unsure of exactly how alex is. 

you'd fled before anyone could try and offer you sympathy. 

[james and his hugs] 

[winn and his presence] 

[lena and her quiet, steadfasat understanding] 

[lucy and her worry, for you] 

[j'onn trying to clean up the city with everyone in devastation] 

and maggie. 

here, before you. 

her hands reaching out and hovering for just a moment over your own. a moment wherein you could pull back, you could step away, you could run, you could push maggie away. 

[you couldn't] 

[she is the one person who may be hurting as badly as you are]

her fingers circle your wrists, unafraid of your blood. unafraid of your hesitation.

"let me," maggie says, asks "kara please." 

and very suddenly, your cape feels heavy on your shoulders. it feels like all of earths gravity and then some has centered on you and your body. so you nod, and let maggie pull you into the safety of her orbit. an arm snaking around your waist, encouraging you to lean into her. 

not that you deserve it. 

alex may still die because of you.

the thought makes you choke. the thought makes you desperate to clench your firsts and lose coherent thought to the overwhelming pain. except maggie is here, and maggie says with a certainly and a warmth you are sure you do not deserve "i've got you kara." and then, as you are guided into alex's office "just breathe kara, i've got you."

you can not breathe. 

not even as maggie's hands slide across your shoulder's like alex's have done a thousand times. especially not when maggie unclips your cape and folds it with a practiced ease you've never noticed she had. your legs are shaking when maggie seeks your gaze and says "i'll be right back, okay?" 

all you can do is nod, because without maggie you're pulling back into the gravity and the darkness of your current situation. where it's alex in surgery and it's alex who you failed, 

and it's alex, 

alex, 

_alex._

"do you want to sit?" maggie asks, not even having left your side yet.

it's sit or keel over and press your knees into the floor until your bones are dust. 

so you sit. 

or, you are sat.

in alex's chair. with her leather jacket draped over the back. your gaze is caught by the photos, three of them 

alex and jeremiah from years ago, before you arrived on this planet. alex in a too big baseball hat, with a mitt on one hand and a baseball in the other. her father - your father - beaming at her, showing her how to play catch. 

alex and maggie and lucy tangled on your couch, a monopoly board in front of them and no semblance of anyone playing by any rules you, or james or winn or lena were familiar with. it's perhaps the happiest and most relaxed you'd ever seen alex - that night. with her found family.

and then last - 

a photo of you and her. not paying any attention the camera, it's one maggie took, that much you know. one day, during a trip to the aquarium, you and alex illuminated by the florescent glow of the backlit jellyfish. alex standing protectively behind you, arms wrapped over your shoulders, pressing a kiss to your temple. the photo is shadows and light and perfect. 

it makes you burn. 

maggie returns with with a first aid kit you're sure she's pulled from alex's locker. tucked under one arm maggie has a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and this unsteady look in her eyes that she tries to mask once she catches your gaze. 

"this is going to hurt." maggie warns, kneeling in front of her, a hand resting on your knee. 

"good." is all you can say. 

and it is all you can do to let maggie take your hands in her own. one by one. she is methodical. she is slow. she is careful and gentle and a thousand other things that overwhelm you. 

[she should be angry] 

[she should be cursing you, the cape you wear and all you stand for] 

instead you have maggie washing blood from your hands, you have maggie taking care of you with nothing but concern, nothing but tenderness and compassion. whether she suspects broken bones or not, you don't know, but maggie is tender in her touches, in the way she wraps your hands in gauze. the way she tapes the ends and the way she carefully, carefully puts your hands back in your lap and asks, 

"are you hurting anywhere else?" 

you don't know how to describe the fact that everything hurts and nothing hurts enough. you want to rip your heart from your chest only to feel the pain of your broken ribs. you aren't sure how to describe the burning in your veins, like someone has set your blood alight. so you say nothing,

you stare at the floor. 

or what you see of the floor because there are still tears. 

and there are tears still when maggie's fingers comes to your chin and she softly, gently, ever so carefully tilts your head to meet her gaze. and when you look, when you finally dare, 

maggie lets out a soft, wet laugh, and there's a smile that shouldn't be there - even if it only lasts for the briefest of moments "you're so like alex." maggie breaths, a hand wiping tears from your cheeks. 

you close your eyes, you try to look away, but maggie holds fast. maggie doesn't let you take to space, she uses all of her gravity to keep you with her - and you're reminded that maggie knows the danvers sisters. 

not just alex, who is probably the love of her life. 

but maggie has taken the time to get to know. you as in kara danvers. you as in kara danvers who tries to find balance with kara zor-el. you who is so much more than just supergirl. maggie knows you like pizza because it's music, maggie who has taken you to the aquarium on your darkest days. 

maggie who has adopted you as the younger sister she never got to really have. 

and the sheer fact that your shoulders are shaking and your jaw is trembling and all your aching hands can do is scrabble for purchase in the soft material of maggie's shirt is evidence that you've adopted her too. 

even with hands that don't really work, that don't feel like anything other than pain, pain, pain, 

even with the assurance that you are to blame for alex's current life and death state, 

even with all of that, 

maggie is pulling you into her arms, 

she pulling you close, 

she's crying, 

she's saying "i know, i know." 

even though you haven't said anything at all. 

you feel her palpable fear in the way she grips to you. as if holding on to you will someone also hold on to alex. 

alex who is fighting for her life. 

alex who, with nothing more than the body, a broken comm, an empty gun and vasquez by her side, slew six for six. 

alex who may have died in the name of protecting national city. protecting earth. 

and you burn because it's supposed to be you. 

you're the one who's supposed to die for the planet that adopted you, 

not alex. 

never alex. 

you cry harder, pressing yourself into maggie because if alex dies, 

if you lose her, 

there is no recovery from that. 

alex is the light. alex is the reason you pick happiness every day. she is why you smile and she is why you let yourself love cat videos and pot stickers and the colours of the sun set. she is why you do anything at all, 

not when waves of grief lap at your shores. for you are the girl who has every reason to collapse. you have lost your parents, your planet, your people. you were abandoned by your cousin - why you readily ignore that is another matter. but still, you've been betrayed and bullied and oh, 

oh how you've lost. 

and the fact of it all is you carry the weight of those losses on your shoulders. every step you take is with that monkey on your back, the one that goads your anger. the one that fills your chest with sadness and a suffocating darkness and tells you how alone you are in the the world, in the universe. 

the miracle of it all is, 

alex, 

alex, your big sister, your protector, her light is stronger than any darkness you contain. 

but without alex? 

if you lose alex here and now, tonight, 

the darkness would consume you. you have no doubts that where you stood, would be nothing but a blackhole. dangerous and volatile and taking anything, anyone, who comes close, down with you.

but maggie stands amidst your crumbling pieces and isn't scared. she cries with you, as if she understands some fraction of your pain. 

and really, 

she might. 

being sent away by parents for reasons you didn't understand. losing them forever. with no chance of reconciliation or reunion. 

you've talked about it, 

in front of the jellyfish. 

maggie who understands perhaps too because of m'gann. m'gann who more wholly understood your loss more than anyone else you've ever met. m'gann who was maggie's friend before she went back to risk it all for her people. 

maggie stands now amidst your storm and buoys you. 

she doesn't let you drift. 

instead, when there's a knock on the door, it's maggie who puts her body between you and whoever's there. even though it's lucy. it's maggie who, somehow has remembered all the things alex ever told her about you when you're powerless. 

"it's alex," lucy says, and your world slows, 

you lift your head and for half a second you try and hear alex's heartbeat, but you're powerless. 

you're powerless. 

instead you're left with maggie's entire body frozen between you and the door. you're left unable to breath, desperately search lucy's face for a sign, for anything other than the worry, than the pain, than the exhaustion. but you get nothing,

because what you see is a reflection of what you're feeling. 

"is she-" maggie starts, but stops, not letting herself say the worlds "lucy-" is all she can get out. 

and lucy is gripping the doorway, nodding, saying with something like relief in her voice "they think she's going to make it." 

and 

"she's out of surgery." 

and then to you, 

"kara you need sun." 

but you shake your head because all you need is alex. 

"i need-" you croak, but maggie's hand is gentle, barely there pressure around your wrist, as if she knows you're willing to run past them all just to get to your sister. 

"they've moved alex to the room with your lamps." lucy says quietly "it was james' idea. please," she adds "come rest." 

you feel your pulse throbbing in your hands, but even taking a step seems impossible. something like relief is coursing through your body, but not until alex is awake, not until alex is walking and firing her gun and listening to you complain about snapper - 

not until then, 

will she be okay. 

"come on," maggie says quietly, "let's get you to the lamps." 

all you can think about is seeing alex. 

and you trust maggie to get you there. 

you trust her to stay, because the moment she sees alex is half a moment before you. and all the breath leaves her body, she goes rigid, like muscle tension is the only thing keeping her standing. maggie's hand tightens around yours and she breaths, 

"oh, ally." 

which you're not sure you were supposed to hear, 

but maggie wavers, and you're sure for a moment she might collapse, so it's your turn to support. it's your turn to guide maggie, with lucy's help, to a chair. and you shouldn't stare, but you do. 

for a moment, watching as maggie reaches for alex's hand. alex who is smaller and far more pale than you have ever seen her. alex who has tubes and wires and a black eye. you're sure you might be ill because 

it's your fault.

it's your fault.

it's _your_ fault. 

your grip on the edge of the bed can not shatter, but if it could, 

there would be pieces in your hands. 

instead there's lucy's hand on your back and there's maggie with her hand so tentatively covering alex's. maggie pressing her forehead against the soft blankets alex is covered in, and crying. 

you want to be there for her. 

you want to wrap your arms around her, but the sun lamps are calling and it's somewhere between lucy guiding you onto the bed, the lamps flickering on and seeing james walk in, a hand coming to maggie back - 

you pass out. 

at long last. 

\-- 

when you stir your hands ache less, 

all you can hear is maggie's voice 

_"and i love you alex, i know you know, but you've gotta wake up because kara needs you. and i can't look out for her like you can. she needs her big sister, alex. she needs you."_

you're not really awake, you're drifting in some hazy space where the sun lamps are warm and your body is knitting itself back together and you want to tell maggie she's your big sister too, 

but you don't have the energy. 

you don't - 

you're out again before you hear what maggie says next. 

[ _"i want to marry you alex."_ ] 

\-- 

your hands are healed, 

but the rest of your powers are still absent. 

you blink and look past the lights, see maggie asleep, hand still covering alex's, head resting on the bed, shoulders covered by a leather jacket that could be hers, alex's, lucy's, or vas'. from this distance it's hard to tell.

seeing alex with the intensity of the lamps is hard and you feel enoguh in your body to stand. to press your bare feet onto the tiled floor. they're cool and your legs are weak, but you grip the side of the table until the world has stopped spinning. 

you walk to alex's bed like it's the first time you've felt earths gravity on your body. bracing yourself for how small alex looks, did nothing to prepare you for the reality of your sister half dead. 

it brings you to your knees. 

and that's how maggie finds you. 

legs pulled close to your chest. 

forehead pressed against your knees. 

rocking slightly. 

sensory overload without super senses. unable to forget the image of alex, 

alex pale and small and weak and it's your fault. 

its your fault.

you did that to her. 

"kara," maggie says, kneeling in front of you, shaking off the jacket someone had covered her with, to put it around your shoulders. 

[it's alex's] 

"can you look at me?" maggie asks 

can you?

you're not sure.

"she's going to be okay." maggie whispers, deciding to settle next to you on the floor, not touching, just speaking soft, just letting you know she's here "alex is stronger than any of us. no offense." 

"it's true." you say, still looking at the floor, speaking to the floor.

"then you know she'll be okay." 

you nod,

part of you is convinced sure, but that's not the point.

you look over at maggie and take a deep breath "do you know why i became supergirl?" 

maggie pauses, and then says "there was a plane." she says "you saved it." 

"yeah," you say "but do you know why?" 

"it had engine failure." 

you shake your head "alex was on it." 

you watch maggie swallow hard, "i became supergirl to save alex." you say "i- if she hadn't been on that plane, i-" you shake your head, you don't know if you can explain what you're feeling. 

"when alex is in danger," you try again "i - she's all that matters. you know? 

maggie nods.

"because she, alex has been looking out for me since i got here. even when she didn't want to, she still did it. because she loved me, because it's what jerimiah wanted her to do. because without her i wouldn't survive a week on this planet." you say "i- she's the reason i do it all, maggie." you settle on "so i can be half the person she is." 

"kara-" 

you shake your head "you know how it feels to lose everything." you keep going "to lose everything. but i, when i got to this planet, i didn't really realize what had happened. i was to preoccupied with not breaking the danvers' glassware. it took years for me to really understand and when i realized," you swallow "i was fifteen and i hadn't seen my cousin since he dropped me off. i was bullied at school and alex had lost jerimiah and maggie, it all hit me, one night just all at once, i didn't have anyone. my people, all of my people were gone." 

you take a breath "because clark, he sees himself as more human than kryptonian. he always has. and back then i barely knew him. and i wanted to die." you admit "i didn't want to be on earth. i tired to think of a hundred different ways i could just, disappear. but it was alex," you swallow, voice thick with emotion, but you have no more tears left "it was alex who gave me a reason to stay." 

"what was it?" maggie asks, her voice sounding as broken as yours. 

"she loved me." you reply "she - i had lost everyone. but gained alex. she promised she wasn't going anywhere. everything good i've ever done is because alex told me she didn't want me to leave. it - that was enough, when i was fifteen and ready to just, fly away. bury myself some where. she asked me to stay. so i did. for her." 

you look over at maggie "it's why i can't lose her maggie. i don't know what i'd do without alex." 

it doesn't seem like maggie quiet knows what to say to that, to all that you've just told her. and that's okay. 

all you need is what she does next.

maggie reaches out, takes your still bandaged hand in hers and laces your fingers together. you sit there, on the tiled floor, side to side, with the steady rhythm of alex's heartbeat projected by a machine you never thought you could like until this moment. 

where neither of you have to speak.

just you and maggie and the silence of alex's recovery. 

and the comfort, small as it is, 

that someone else in the world knows exactly and specifically why you are who you are. 

because of alex. 

for alex. 

always.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @ onefootone.


End file.
